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15.10.14

Our kitchen chairs needed a serious upgrade. The fabric was SO dingy, dirty and stained. Ugh. I have no idea why I don't have a close up photo of them as I am positive I took one, but you can sort of see what I mean here.

Chace eats his breakfast at this table every morning and the spills and stains that come from a toddler to child have taken their toll on these little chairs. Time for a refresh!

The main thing I wanted here was a fabric that looked like an indoor fabric, but was really an outdoor one. I wanted something that could stand up to the dirt and spills that are inevitable with a five-year-old.

The winner? This amazing outdoor fabric called "Secret Gate - Pewter" from Tonic Living. It's an awesome gray/cream lattice pattern - now the title makes sense right? I only needed one yard so at $15.95/yd this was an inexpensive upgrade. My favourite kind!

Now, the chairs look like this…

I had never reupholstered anything before but my friend Natalie had, so she came up to help me. It's not an overly hard process but with the stapling and pulling the fabric taught that is involved, it's great to have a second set of hands. Natalie's help was invaluable! She's got a really good eye too for keeping things straight and uniform.

First, we unscrewed the seats from the chairs. The screws were easily accessible on the bottom.

Then, we draped the fabric to see what layout we liked the best.

After we had decided on one, we used a few T-pins to hold the fabric in place. These will come out later.

Flipping the cushions over, we started with the corners, making sure they were pulled good and tight.

We used a staple gun to secure the fabric to the chair cushion base.

Then we continued around the cushion, pulling the fabric taught and securing it in place with staples.

When we were done, it looked pretty much like this. Not the prettiest 'finish' but since no one looks under a chair, I think it's okay. I may try to finish it off a bit cleaner but to be honest, it's been this way for a few months now and isn't bothering me too much.

We removed the T-pins, and then draped the next cushion to match.

T-pinning that in place, we repeated the whole process.

We screwed the finished cushions back on to the chair frames and..

DONE!

I love how the chairs now look updated. The fabric is modern, fresh and fun. And stain resistant!

You would never know it's an outdoor fabric by looking at it would you?

And it looks great when looking down on it through the glass table top too.

Overall I'm so pleased with how they turned out.

It's amazing how a simple and inexpensive upgrade can yield such a high-end look. Talk about 'bang for your buck'!

Have you ever tackled any reupholstering before? How did you finish the bottom of the chair if so? Any experience bringing an outdoor fabric inside?

12.10.14

Oh Autumn. How I love you so. You with your cozy lattes, crisp leaves and amazing colours. Let me celebrate by making you a wreath. And then keeping it for myself and hanging it on my door.

I made a wreath.

It was really easy and really inexpensive.

I've always loved wreaths but find some of the pre-made ones to be really fussy and garish. I like them simple - in look and skill set!

So, when walking by Michaels craft store a few weeks back I noticed that their 'seasonal picks' (those fake flowers and greenery) were on for 50% off. I was particularly drawn to a faux pot of flowers because of its amazing Autumn colour. The price was right at $10 and I knew I could pop the flowers off and use them to create a wreath. I grabbed a smaller flower spray for contrast as well as a wire wreath form and was on my way.

You don't need much to make this kind of a wreath. My supplies were simple - spray paint (explain in a moment), a glue gun, wreath form, and flowers. Ignore the wire snips. I had grabbed those but as it turns out, these flowers simply popped off. For some flower picks/sprays you may need the wire snips to cut the flowers off though.

When I set out to make the wreath I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted it to look. I thought I may want to have a bit of the wreath form show and create a really modern looking wreath. I had some gold spray paint on hand from when I updated our powder room so took a quick moment to coat the wreath form. If you follow me on Instragram you may remember seeing my spray party.

Once that dried I popped the tops off the flowers…

And started arranging. I didn't glue anything down at this point, just played with my options. I tried several different layouts…

nope.

me no likey.

no thanks.

blech.

Sigh. I didn't like any of them. Nothing was working for me. I didn't have enough of the large flowers to make a nice full wreath and all the imbalanced designs just weren't doing it for me.

So I decided to back to Michaels and bought another pot of the larger ones. They were still on 50% off but I was able to use an additional 25% off coupon that week. Nice!

To attach them to the wreath frame I simply glue gunned each one on. Here is a little animated gif of it all coming together…

After I secured both the large and small flowers on, I was done!

I hung it up easily using a "Command Hook" that was already on the door from an earlier wreath.

Here are a few close ups. I love the colours. Autumn has the best colour palette!

And that's it! Easy and festive.

My love affair with Autumn continues.

Have you made any wreaths lately? What is your favourite season? Are you obsessed with Autumn's colour palette like I am?